Level of Government

Governor Laura Kelly (D-KS) announced that Kansas is the first state to receive $15 million in US Department of Treasury Digital Connectivity Technology (DCT) funds. The money will support equal access to high-speed internet, provide devices to underserved Kansans, and expand digital skills training for communities across Kansas. The DCT funds are made available under the American Rescue Plan Act's (ARPA) Capital Projects Fund (CPF).

Shortly after coming into office, President Joe Biden moved to restore net neutrality.

Ottawa County (MI) will extend broadband internet service to unserved and underserved areas of the county through a $27 million public-private partnership with a southeast Michigan firm, Southfield-based 123Net. The company will invest $3.5 million as part of a proposed $27 million project to extend 383 miles of fiber-optic lines across the county that initially would pass by nearly 10,000 addresses and could expand in the future.

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (Bureau) announces the grant of two 900 MHz broadband segment license applications. No petitions to deny these applications were filed, and the applications sufficiently demonstrate conformance with the eligibility conditions (Eligibility Certification) and requirements for transitioning the 900 MHz band in the particular county requested (Transition Plan).

The Federal Communications Commission proposed a new regulatory framework to facilitate innovative collaborations between satellite operators and wireless companies. These partnerships leverage the growth in space-based services to connect smartphone users in remote, unserved, and underserved areas. Numerous such collaborations have been launched recently, and the FCC seeks to establish clear and transparent processes to support supplemental coverage from space.

The Federal Communications Commission seeks comment on its expanded authority over incarcerated people’s communications services, as outlined in the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act of 2022. The new law gives the FCC authority to combat unjust and unreasonable rates and charges for voice and video calls, including calls within a state’s borders, where previously the agency had rate-making authority only over voice calls between states and foreign locations.

A Q&A with Dina Srinivasan, who, in February 2019 as an independent scholar, published an academic paper entitled ‘The Antitrust Case Against Facebook’, in which she identified a correlation between privacy and economics — and argued that the social media giant lowered its privacy standards as soon as it had defeated its rivals.

Community decision-making is the foundation of Maine’s DNA. Town meetings, volunteer school boards, and local planning efforts are all central to what makes this Maine. Dozens of communities have started this process with local people identifying locations and groups needing better service to develop plans addressing these gaps. But these community-led efforts are under threat from big monopoly internet service providers, who fear competition will lose customers.

Over 150 network operators applied for funding in a broadband program operated by the state of Michigan. The operators requested $1.3 billion in funding through the program, which has a budget of $231 million. Applications were due on March 15, 2023, in the Realizing Opportunity with Broadband Infrastructure Networks (ROBIN) program. The $1.3 billion in funding would have covered some of the costs of broadband deployments estimated to cost a total of $2.3 billion. The applications proposed to connect approximately 380,000 locations.

The Federal Communications Commission has directed the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau to offer an additional funding opportunity of up to $10 million for the National Competitive Outreach Grant Program (NCOP) and the Tribal Competitive Outreach Grant Program (TCOP), which are components of the Affordable Connectivity Outreach Grant Program. This maximum of $10 million will come from a combination of: (a) unspent funding – funding previously allocated to the Outreach Grant Program but not awarded; and (b) unobligated funding – funding from the $100 million Affordable Connectivity P